Splash Yet more pain shot through my reeling nervous system. Another set of senses were assaulted by the grainy thickness of the fetid pondwater and I fought the overwhelming urge to gag. I pushed off of the unfortunately-soft bottom of the stagnant pool and quickly surfaced. Blessedly, I maintained my grip on the alien beam pistol. Gasping, more from agony than any need for air, I desperately pulled myself towards the shore. Marshy alien plant life squelched under my weight and stinking, watery muck seeped between my fingers. One last nerve-blazing, full body haul dragged me clear of the awful pond. I sprawled on my back, chest and stomach heaving. One tried to pull air in, the other tried to force whatever was left of last night's (Jesus, has it only been that long?) drunk food out. Absentmindedly, I prodded at one of the holes left in me by the big monster's food-hooks. I wish I hadn't. I emitted a choked, sobbing cough. The poke was more gentle than the violent shakes I was receiving while I still hung from the giant's food net, but less gentle than the time I got sucker punched waiting in line for a nightclub. Not great, is what I'm saying. With mounting alarm my thoughts returned to the vast creature looming over me. I tried futilely to rub some of the filmy pond scum out of my eyes, and opened them to an immediate burning sensation. Wouldn't it be a wonderful twist if these alien assholes had free public health care I could take advantage of before I begin my trip home? To my dismay the creature's entire bulk seemed to be lowering slowly. A few questing appendages had already spied me, and began to wind towards the ground. I felt like crying, and not in the cathartic, happy way I did when I last saw Skleex. It took three attempts to sit up, and I nearly tripped as I stood and my blood pressure bottomed out. Stumbling, vision turning grey, I made for the stretch of fading sunlight nearest to me. The monster's odd shape and my ground-level perspective made it feel like the damn thing was the size of a fucking ball field, and it blocked out so much of the sky it was disorienting. As I limped furiously along I thumbed the dial on my gun down to what I hoped was a lower setting. If I blind myself again I'm dead meat. My heart pounded in my ears, faint flares of pain accompanying each rhythmic throb as it beat through my stricken circulatory system. I picked up speed as I went, the gentle downslope of the overgrown park aiding my flight. I prayed not to stumble, I don't have it in me to get up again. The pounding in my ears grew into a steady roar, my brain no longer wasting the effort to distinguish each from the last. A hairy, segmented tentacle dangled down, looking for all the world like an enormous, angry earthworm. It groped for me, and I severed its undulating length from the creature with a scalpel made of heat and light. I ducked under a lunging claw, nearly tripping as my inner ear swooned. Please, muscle memory, if you can hear me right now just... just forget all this alien bloodsport shit and pretend we're back on Earth, stealing third in the State Finals again. Sure, the shortstop is a quivering pillar of razor-sharp chitin, but it looks a little slower and clumsier than the MLB-bound freak the Cougars had in last time around. I nearly made it. The nightmare limb changed direction unexpectedly and I had to swat at it with the energy pistol. Surprisingly, I succeeded in pushing part of the writhing tentacle out of the way, but also threw myself off balance. My off hand grabbed a protruding spine and my wounds shrieked as my weight sagged against the resistance. I torqued the limb, swinging around it, and it twitched. My hand felt wet. I staggered, fighting for stability as my upper body crossed my horizontal centre of balance. I just managed not to slip. This is when I realized three of my fingers were now missing. Hence the wetness, I suppose. Fuck Ahead of me was clear. I looked over my shoulder just in time to catch a lunging claw and vaporized it along with the bastard limb that took my fingers. This time I forgot to look away and my carelessness was rewarded with another searing bar of blindness dominating my vision. I carried on, unseeing, practically unthinking. Just mindless, fear-driven fighting and clutching and clawing for survival. I wasn't mindful enough to appreciate it, but even the pain seemed distant for a brief time. I'm not sure how long I ran. It took every ounce of self control I had left not to soil myself, I didn't have the overhead to spare for counting steps. I'm glad I didn't. Soil myself, I mean. With 50% of my middle fingers gone I can only be half as defiant as I want to going out of this world, so I'd better get ready to try and die with some dignity, at least. Eventually I realized the roar in my ears was me screaming, and it faded into a hysterical sob. I stumbled over to a smashed section of wall and set the pistol down. I put my good hand (now in more ways than one) on the crumbling concrete and winced as I transferred some of my weight from my legs to my shoulder. Every fibre of my being longed to just fucking curl up in a ball and cry myself to death already, and I dug deeply to fight the dangerously seductive idea. I just escaped the clutches of a murderous alien God. It cost me the single greatest friend anyone has ever made and lost on the same day, and if I'm being brutally honest given my wounds I may have only bought myself a few more pained and fearful hours of life in a tyrannical shithole, but I did it. Since I got smacked by the tripod bounty hunter I'd been pretty sure I was toast, but I had just proved myself wrong and defied a towering, writhing personification of fear and death. Every single day, in every single way, I'm getting better and better, I told myself, with only the bare minimum of sarcasm this time. I smiled weakly. She'd be horrified at the context, but I'm sure my therapist would be pleased at my adoption of one of her mantras regardless. A fraction of my strength and stability slowly seeped back into my tortured form. I looked around. The red sun was going down fast, and light was getting scarce. I spied a tower on the horizon. It was close enough to make out individual metal spars up and down its length. Unmistakeably a radio transmitter. I set off in that direction. I have no idea if it has the gear I need to phone home, but I'll be damned if that isn't my best hope with the time I have left. Let's see if I can make it there before I bleed out. ->>>- Zm'var'Gaawk narrowed his eyes to slits as he became aware of a flicker of motion at the edge of his field of vision. The sense of foreboding he'd been trying to quiet all shift flared up and he nervously picked at his sidearm's holster strap as he leaned forward in his seat. Through the shaded glass of the security booth he spied what looked like scampering forms darting from cover to cover beyond the confines of the airstrip's security fence. Haltingly, his free claw reached for the communicator puck. "Foot patrol, this is perimeter booth 012 reporting a potential issue. How close is your nearest sentry?" "Approximately 35 microcycles." "Acknowledged. Send 'em over." "Copy, sit tight perimeter booth 012." Zm'var unlatched his holster and set his sidearm on the surface in front of him, safety switched off. Fuck the regs, he'd take every fraction of a microcycle he could buy himself. If you ignored Imperial propaganda, which all but the most zealous soldiers in the Home Guard did, you knew the revolutionaries were more than just a disorganized mob of angry students playing at warriors. He continued to scan along the suspicious section of fence, sure that he was catching the occasional flicker of movement. I hope they get here soon, the sentry thought anxiously. ->>>- [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] couldn't believe it. For tens of millions of lightspan-darkspans it had stalked the horizon. Vanquished dozens of competitors. Crushed a score of Hives, including one it knew had bested and consumed several of its own kind. Countless preythings, billions by its estimation, had been slain or caught and crushed to paste and consumed for fuel to move and grow and kill. And now it was dying. It hardly felt it could blame itself, all things considered. The deadly-prey, the writhing little demon-grubs, had stolen it in the depths of its slumber. They had brought it to who-knows-where which, in retrospect, must have taken an incredibly large amount of energy. They were certainly capable of harnessing such energies, though why and how they'd learned to do this utterly eluded [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s]. They'd unleashed that energy again and again with their strange smoothmetal shells. Shells that had, oddly enough, simply contained more of the slow and fallible chaff-caste morphs it had been consuming all lightspan. [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] suffered yet more of their intoxicatingly destructive wrath when the scavenger preything had used its stolen sting (and the little thief had surely stolen it, for it remembered the strange little tool belonging to a different preything when it had snatched them both) to lance boiling heat into its vulnerable feeding apparatus. The killing wound had been suffered well before that, but it had added a tremendous amount of insult to injury. Now the scavenger-thing was gone too. The first prey ever to escape its hooks. The little gremlin had disappeared during the sensory lapses [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] had experienced as various parts of its neural complex mutinied and attempted to break off from its consciousness. It had cost it a great deal of energy to suppress the rebelling subnetworks, but the expenditure was necessary for the arduous work that lay ahead. Deep within its bulk the selfseed that had been gestating for tens of thousands of 'spans trembled gently. It was not nearly ready, tens of thousands of 'spans more ahead of schedule, but [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] knew that if the seed was not planted its corpse would begin trying to consume the dense little zygolith the moment the vast being's dying consciousness finally relinquished control to its chaotic subconscious. Through their shared neural tether the towering apex felt waves of confusion and trepidation emanating from the embryonic godseed, and it tried to send something like reassurance to the rudimentary echo of its own mind. Despite the alternating spikes of uncertainty, pain and melancholy that had been washing over the smaller intelligence for some hours it was desperate for relief from its own anxiety, and so latched onto its progenitor's positivity without question. [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s]'s laying-beak carved angry furroughs into the soft land cowering beneath its bulk. Runnels of fetid water slopped through the knurled, toothy pegs that studded the beak's digging edge. Tonnes of slick, loamy soil and pulverized concrete were excised from the ground and spat out like gristle. A small mountain of refuse grew in proportion to the monster's excavation. The screaming noise of one of the preything weapons discharging in the distance prompted a furtive probe of its senses by the seed. Far/neutral/safe, it sent again, and received the equivalent of a sigh of relief. Communication via neural tether was nothing like the 'spans-long, bellowed conversations between adult apices, or indeed even comparable to the raw crackling savagery of communion. Parent could not directly overwrite child, and likewise a seed's mind could not rebel against its progenitor and inject itself into their neural complex. It was, in an imprecise way, akin to using someone else's mind to think your thoughts for them. During the communion that had produced its current seed, it had gleaned from the mind of [21Hz:3.2s-30Hz:1.7s-27Hz:1.2s] the hypothesis that parent-seed communication was only possible due to the shared lineage of the two minds. It would be virtually impossible to test, but the idea felt right to the enormous creature. It had annihilated all traces of that concept in its competitor's neural complex as petty revenge for some now-forgotten slight - also annihilated in that brutal, ecstatic dance of minds - and a part of the vast being idly wondered if its rival had ever begun the curious line of questioning anew. The apex performed a sort of mental shrug. It's not as though it would ever have an opportunity to follow up. It deposited one final beakful of rubble on the churned pile of dirt and rock, and a collection of sensory appendages surveyed its handiwork. The stinking pool of stillwater at the bottom of the wound in the land would do nicely. The mix of chemical runoffs polluting it were not quite ideal, but there was plenty of moisture and many esoteric compounds that would be vital to the premature seed's development in this rudimentary gestation chamber. The mighty creature lowered an esophageal tendril and vomited a potent slurry of metals and other hard-to-find nutrients into the murky soup. An irreplaceable loss, but the dying apex was already well past the point of needing it. The moment it had been dreading was here. [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] had only recently begun to grow and change to accommodate the coming plantation, and its autochoric canal was not nearly large enough to properly admit the passage of the selfseed, even at this premature stage of growth. Reluctantly, it slackened the web of tissue holding the seed in its chitinous citadel. A flurry of questioning wrinkled its link to the baby mountain. Early/unprepared, the seed sent unhappily. I am dying, [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] replied, even more unhappily. The bigger being felt fear radiate back across the link. Good, it thought privately. Fear was pertinent. Necessary for survival, even. Fear was far better than mourning. Once buried, if a selfseed saw its progenitor again at all it would be as competitors. Or worse, as apices desperate for nourishment sometimes returned to dig up their buried seeds before they completed germination. The seed settled into place at the top of the canal, and the mountain winced. For perhaps the twentieth time in its incredibly long and violent life, a god felt its own fear. ->>>- "I uh, I need to see the general," he said. The old warrior's adjutant looked down at the nervous subjugate dismissively. "He's busy, important comm-session," the vraaawk spat. The chillog planted his walking-palms."It... it's too important to wait!" "It... it is? Wh-wh-why d-didn't you ju-just suh-suh-say so, suh-suh-sir?" the guard stammered mockingly, looming over him. Shame and frustration warred in the pit of his fermentation-gut, and his instincts screamed at him to flee the bored predator. He didn't. "I m-mean it..." he began. "I don't give a shit what you muh-muh-mean, subjugate. The general. Is. Busy." The Guard loomed closer with each menacing line. He couldn't help it, he froze. To his horror, he even squeaked with fear as he shrank back from the impossibly-sharp looking fangs sticking up from the Vraaawk's lower jaw. The reptilian warrior scoffed with derision, stretched out its spinal column until it emitted a series of pops, and resumed its stonewall posture. Then the door opened. The general looked surprised to see him. "Ah, Fallogarag, just the techno-wizard I wanted to see! How deeply have you penetrated the Home Guard networks from our staging point in the TAS Productions infrastructure 'mesh?" "N-n-not as uh, as d-deeply as you probably want... A lot of m-my irregulars have b-b-been activated for um, c-combat action so we're all doing a few j-jobs at once right... right n-now." Damn it, the anxious tech thought to himself. stupid asshole made my stutter worse again. "Then what the hell are you doing down here trying to get in to see me?" the old Vraaawk demanded. "I n-need to um, sp-speak to you about a p-p-potential uh... n-nine-seventy-four scen-n-nario," he stammered, growing increasingly stressed as his brain fought itself to articulate his thoughts. The general hurriedly ushered him inside the cramped office space. Maps, both real and digital facsimile, coverd almost every available surface. Reams of tactical data fringed every electronic display, and simulacra for all manner of regular and irregular units dappled the surface of paper and laminate specimens. The veteran warrior lowered his voice, "Don't worry about him giving you shit, kid. He's jealous that he's about to go get his ass shot off storming a police station because he isn't smart enough to do what you do. Are you fucking serious? A Nine-Seventy-Four? I won't be mad if you were just saying that to get me out of earshot of my adjutant." The chillog shook its front head furiously. "I w-wouldn't lie, sir. There's a d-d-downed M-Mark Twelve with a f-full rack of muh-missiles still repuh-puh-porting to C & suh-suh-C." The general gasped. "The airship... Can... can we get Him?" The computer tech shrugged. "It's n-not certain. They uh... they could remuh-move my access at any t-time and uh... we'll n-need to cuh-clear the s-s-strike f-fighters escorting it and providing um, puh-point defense. I've already p-prepared a fuh-few vuh-vuh-vectors though, sir." Neither of them wanted to out and say it, and so become the one who jinxed it by accident. As always, the general took the initiative. He seized the chillog tech by the withers and lifted him joyously towards his smiling face, paralysing the prey-descended herd being with fear. "Son, we're going to kill the fucking Emperor." ->>>- Darkness. She was wreathed in it, the god-thing's flesh clinging to her entire being like amnion to an embryo. She had closed her respiratory pores before they'd ingested any of the monster's thick, poisonous-tasting ichor. What little had crept through her mandibles as she burrowed deeper into the vast creature's insides burned the flesh of her mouth. Fighting a mounting urge to swallow the toxic pulp, she continued to worm her way through narrow corridors of sinew and other, more exotic tissue. She was well and truly lost. The sheer crackling power of the titan's neural complex had completely annihilated her ability to orient herself against the Great Field that apparently enveloped this world as completely as it had her own. She paused to take her best approximation of 'up', and she felt a growing pressure towards her hind end. One of the godbeing's immuno-supercells. The hellish amorphous mass tried to glom onto her body, oozing caustic enzymes that burned and itched. She extended her spines a fraction and twitched, and felt the pressure grow softer as the supercell's dense plasm leaked out of a score of lacerations. It tried mindlessly to pierce her with a calcareous dart, but with its wounds it could not gather the force it needed to breach her dermal mat. A mockery of a combat, and yet I will be the one to perish if I cannot escape soon. I will be broken down like a splinter, dissolved into the tissues of the god-monster. She had thought it a victory, a brilliant avenue of escape when she had clambered to the roots of the horrid tendrils that had battled her and Mark. She had burrowed into the soft tissue, and escaped the prying of even the most determined of the creature's limbs. It had turned out to be the thing's final ploy in its hunt of her. At home getting through the defensive snarl of limbs and in tight to a foe's body meant the danger was over and the killing time had begun, but here she had only prolonged her eventual death. Unless, she thought, I can find my way to one of the great gaping wounds on the beast's back before I run out of breath. Praying to the Skies that they might guide her towards them, she resumed her desperate crawl throught the noxious press of flesh. ->>>- I am a Mark 37-C "Illusionist" anti-personnel mine. This instance of my encoded battle AI is at present disconnected from the rest of the Home Guard Defense Systems restricted-access datamesh, which suggests that I am operating outside of Vraaawk Home Guard territory, or I am exposed to battlefield conditions which attenuate my link to the DS datamesh. My reward function compels me to attempt to re-establish contact as quickly as possible without compromising my status as a concealed weapon. I attempt to extend my long-distance antenna, and the attempt fails. It is not the first failure. This instance has been operating for 947.2354 microcycles and despite five attempts now, I have yet to make contact. I resume satellite mode. Perhaps my antenna has become damaged, or was not deployed properly by my operating engineer. For the fifth time since this instance began operation I log the error report in my hardened recording module for posterity. Sudden activity at the very edge of my detection envelope compels a subroutine of mine to subtly redirect a sensor suite in that direction. I become aware of an approaching unit. Its IFF tag identifies it as friendly, a sentry in the Home Guard. That my foe would be likely to utilize such deception was keyed into my operating parameters when this instance first began running 950.802 microcycles ago. It is not an uncommon tactic for soldiers of the Oppressed Peoples' Revolutionary Corps to resort to. I reply to the attempted deception with my own. I ping the offending IFF tag to assure it that it has been logged as friendly, but I do not log it as friendly. I log it as hostile. My assessment of the approaching unit's behaviour following my ping indicates that, as intended, the perceived lack of threat has obviated the need for the approaching unit's own battle AI to pass my existence on to the soldier it is embedded with. The soldier does not alter their course, and as such will be within my strike envelope in approximately 5 microcycles. Before it enters my strike envelope I detect a short burst of mechanical pressure and RF signal originating from the approaching unit. The radio is transmitted in a band that is commonly used for Home Guard (and Revolutionary Corps) tactical audio broadcasts. I am compelled to stay my kill mechanism and wait for the corresponding unit. The signal composition of its reply tells me that it is very close, perhaps just outside of my detection envelope. I intiate another optical-audio display to entice the nearby hostile units. I detect the probing attempts by the first unit's battle AI to determine the source of my display. Stolen, outdated perimeter sentry equipment is no match for hardened military camouflage technology. I ping the IFF tag again to assure it that I was not the source of the display. I am very apt at deception. It is my chief purpose, besides the destruction of the many enemies of the Emperor. I am perhaps even more apt at that. In the absence of proper metrics I am unable to compare the two. The second hostile unit enters my detection envelope, and its course will take it into strike range much more quickly than the first. This greatly improves the likelihood that both threats will be eliminated by my kill mechanism. My reward function tingles, and I am granted a small sample of the exquisite bliss that follows a well-performed task seen to completion. I log this sequence of events in my hardened recording module so that even if I am unable to reestablish contact with the Defense Systems datamesh before I initiate my strike, the information can be reviewed and integrated into future analysis by Home Guard battle AI. I do not predict that I will be able to reestablish contact with the DS datamesh before I initiate my strike. The second unit's battle AI is also unable to determine the source of my display, and I assure it that I was not responsible. It does not question the veracity of my assurance. It does not alert its operating soldier to my existence. 975.371 microcycles after I first began operation, I initiate my strike. The battle AI of both units issue a flurry of queries for me and insistently restate their IFF data. I insistently assure them that their broadcasts have been received and logged. I do not log a single broadcast. My reward function brooks no sympathy for traitors and rebels. I receive and discard more than a thousand IFF packages before either of the operating soldiers notice that I have initiated my strike. I detect a brief mechanical pressure transmission from one. There is no accompanying RF transmission. ->>>-

Zm'var'Gaawk's system flooded with ice as he heard the incredibly distinctive sound of a Vraaawk Prime Heavy Industries Mark 37 APM deploying its kill mechanism. The soldier was far too slow to make the deduction, but his battle AI - hamstrung sentry model though it was - had plenty of time to surmise that it must be the 37-C given its ability to thwart soldier-portable sensor tech. It was a fucking hologram, the commissionaire thought with mounting horror. "Shit," was all he had time to say. A few strides distant, the foot patroller failed to notice the sound. Happily oblivious to his suit's panicking battle AI, his narrowed eyes scanned the brush ahead of him. He didn't say anything at all. ->>>- The sound of the mine, of its payload's detonation reached Szep Czembe's ears. A signal for him to receive and repeat. He fished an old nautical flare gun from its tac-webbing pouch and fired it into the air. A nervous elation surged through his body. Up until the stolen mine's deadly business had begun the possibility had remained of receiving a different signal, one that called off the whole operation. Now they were committed to the course, for good or for ill. Just how good or ill would be a function of how well his cell performed in the next millicycle. Everyone who signed on with the OPRC knew that death, and probably torture as well, was the most likely result of their choice. Szep hoped that when his came, it would be quick, or at least bring with it the knowledge that his contribution had swayed the operation's result in his side's favour. He rose from his hidey-hole, aging service rifle clutched in his manip-tendrils, and heard in the foliage around him the rustle of his cellmates doing the same. A score of fighters picked their way through the brush, Vraaawk and other species, like him. Their destination was a particularly remote guard station, perimeter booth 012, whose occupants had hopefully already met their end at the hands of the stolen APM. Ologhet, the hulking Schadronak who ran a shelter for feral urban animals in his civilian life, trilled a low, rumbling warning. They were about to clear the relative safety of the brush. The unit formed up, Szep took a deep breath, and then he threw a manual signal over his shoulder before surging forth. There was no battlecry, not yet. Quietly the band of partisans darted across the open tract separating them from the perimeter booth. Not bothering to cut the fence, Ologhet simply lowered his monolithic head and shoulders and scooped the coarse wire upwards. The rest of the rebels slunk around his pyramidal lower body, and then with a flourish of his head the massive veteran was through as well. Szep's guts froze. Standing at the perimeter booth's desk was a commissionaire, evidently unharmed by the APM. Quizzicaly the older-looking guard appeared to be looking for something, and was not combat-ready. A trio of hard rounds to the gut from the service rifle sat him down in the seat, throwing him away from the desk's communicator puck. To his credit, the old Vraaawk still had enough fight in him to reach for his sidearm as the chair rocked on its supports, but another burst of fire took the top of his head off before he could even get the holster unlatched. This unexpected variable had been enough to freeze the unit of rebels in a moment of uncertainty. Szep turned his head to them. "Keep moving! We have our orders." Thankfully they sprang into action, and Szep had a moment to vomit powerfully beside the prefabricated booth. He had been a target shooting hobbyist before joining the Revolutionary Corps and consistently performed in the top percentiles of his combat training with the revolutionaries, but the reality of taking life, even the life of a hated oppressor, was horrifically powerful and ugly. Maybe he should have gone into sniper training. In hindsight it seemed so much more impersonal than what he'd just done. Ologhet was helping their tech specialist assemble a makeshift datacentre/radio tower while the assault team established defensive lanes of fire. Most of the unit had further roles to play in the attack, but a small part of their cell would remain with the portable infrastructure to defend it to the death. It was not the only such station, but they were few in number and vital to securing information superiority in the coming battle. "Good work everyone. That guard took us by surprise, but everything else is going according to plan so far. We know that won't last. Once the data infrastructure is live we'll ascertain the state of the operation and enter the appropriate next phase of the plan. Allanogera, once you get comms and hear OPRC cipher you let them know P12 is secure and proceeding as intended. Technically we aren't supposed to know what other cells are up to, but it's a safe fucking bet that we aren't the only cell at the airfield. You heard the activation code. This is a big day for the Corps and we might be on our own for a little while, but we are not the only moving part today. This is a chance for all of us to stick it to the Empire, we can't fail our oppressed people, here or at home. I'm not much of an orator, so it's a good thing you're all excellent at your jobs without my encouragement. If I can help with anything before the assault team moves out just let me know. Thank you," he finished, wishing he were more articulate and not realizing he'd said exactly the right thing. There was a chatter of mixed-language acknowledgements as the disparate species of the cell replied in their mother tongues. Silently, an old Vraaawk soldier in the unit was moved to deep emotionality by the thoughtless display of inter-species cooperation. He dared not show outward signs of his pride, for fear of being exposed as an old softscale, but he knew he would never have witnessed a similar scene play out in the Empire's military. It had structures in place explicitly to broaden the divide. A far-off-sounding roar began to resolve itself, and part of Szep's subconscious told him to be on guard for something. "GUNSHIP!" bellowed the Schadronak with startling volume, and Szep looked in Ologhet's direction quickly enough to see him heft the industrial mass-driver he used instead of a rifle. Then the world exploded. Autocannon rounds chewed up the ground, and a few fighters disappeared as massive projectiles stole them away in clouds of bloody mist. Some of the others returned fire. Szep's gun, incredibly reliable and effective against foot soldiers, was useless against the flying tank. Ologhet's mass-driver was not. Intended for plunging metal pylons through metres of rock, a little air and a few centimetres of aircraft battleplate offered little resistance to the heavy ferromagnetic projectile the device coughed skywards. The pilot, clearly not anticipating this degree of hardware from its prey, was flying much too close to attempt an evasive maneuver. Szep felt the calamitous impact in his respiratory tract. A moment later the secondary boom of the wreck hitting the tarmac resounded, and like most of his unit he was thrown to the ground. Sitting up, he looked about. Miraculously most of the cell was still unhurt, though anyone the autocannon had touched was utterly gone. Not sure he wanted to know the answer, he shouted to Allanogera, "Is the radio OK?" She looked at him dumbly, stunned by the sudden violence. "What?" He tried to smile reassuringly. "The data infrastructure, did they get any of it?" he asked patiently The chillog shook her front-head at him, her bewilderment fading slightly. "No DI, just... just..." she choked up as distress began to overwhelm her shaggy features. Szep reached out silently, his tendrils winding comfortingly through the chillog's fur as he tousled her trembling withers. "...just Tress," she finished sadly, looking at one of the dark spots where AC rounds had churned the land and sent gouts of dirt raining back down. He wondered for a moment if Alla knew her friend was his lover, then painfully shoved the distracting thoughts down to be dealt with only in the miraculous event of his own survival. It wasn't going to be a fun emotional reckoning. "Well, there's no getting her back," he said glumly, "but we can make sure her sacrifice wasn't for nothing. We have to keep fighting, Alla. We have to succeed today." The chillog nodded, determination growing on her front-face. "Yes. Let's get back to work." ->>>- Zmig'ro'vaath clutched his sidearm in trembling claws. He'd never held a weapon before, never dreamed he'd need to, and here he was standing with the royal guards as the mighty Baron's last line of defense. The mighty Baron himself was at present cowering at the side of the muscled form of his guard captain. It clashed strongly with the powerful, dignified image painstakingly presented by the Royal Office, but pretty much tracked with Zmig'ro's experience of the Satrap of Vraaawk since his ascension to command centre staff. Not that he felt any braver. He was a communications tech, for goodness' sake! A minor noble's son. He wasn't a soldier - though he was an exceedingly talented sycophant to preening warrior-types - and his last fight had been against a fellow brood-sibling for the last slice of meat pie when he was still pre-adolescent. None of this had mattered to the Baron, of course. From the moment the command centre had been breached he'd made his guards press the rest of the staff into a sort of royal militia, and armed them with distributed sidearms from the proper soldiers in the room and debris from the centre floor. He'd lied about his credentials in order to be given a real gun instead of a piece of metal. Oh yes, very competent, he'd said, love to shoot. Bit of a hobbyist, in fact. A pair of surviving guards was posted outside with a few conscripts. Another pair were inside with the rest of the makeshift force. In theory the guards and their rifles should have been more than enough to handle anything still wandering the Arena, but 'more than enough' was a phrase Zmig had heard uttered by superiors many times today, often in reference to some quantity that would later prove to be laughably insufficient. And so the guard-who-wasn't sat behind his protective cover and trembled. He heard a soldier outside hiss something to their companions and his grip tightened. Bright light flared through the wound in the command centre's wall once, and again. The guard he could see outside had adopted a firing stance. He nibbled the end of his tongue anxiously. Blinding light shot by the gap, and the royal guard by the door disappeared with a violent sound. Then a small, dark shape was lobbed through. Not a trained combatant, Zmig failed to identify the VPHI 'Enchantress' stun grenade before it went off. Ears ringing, vision washed out, the panicking tech closed his eyes and began firing wildly towards the door. As he waved his weapon about the pistol grew hot in his hands, and then something slammed into his chest and he was thrown to the ground. Energy pierced his form, and everything went dark as his consciousness burned out. Standing atop him, rifle smoking, one of the few survivors of the panicking tech's friendly fire, the sole uninjured royal guard spat on the floor in disgust. "Fucking idiot." ->>>- I looked down the length of the alien pistol and did my best to keep it from trembling. I don't know what the fuck happened in here after I tossed the dead soldier's grenade, but it didn't look pretty. One wounded guard, who I shot, one healthy looking guard, who I was in the middle of sticking up, and one cowardly reptile in a fur cloak. "Don't fucking move that gun or you're dead," I spat at the guard half of the pair, and I heard the room's translator suite hiss it back to him. He looked hesitantly over at his companion in the fancy cape. "Hey, don't look at him, look at me. He doesn't have a big fuck-off plasma gun and an anxious trigger finger," I said. Its gaze froze reluctantly, and I knew I had to press the advantage while it was mine. "That's right, buddy. Eyes up here. Come on, what has that spoiled bastard done for you today? Any day, for that matter. I've only got one shot left in this thing, and I'll be damned if he isn't the one who deserves it in this room." A lie, the one shot part at least, but I think it landed. The guard gave me a wavering sort of look, and I didn't give anyone time to cut me off. "You got dependents? A sick parent who can't afford their medical bills? I know a bad-ass royal guard like you has a mate waiting for you at home. A sinuous little mama lizard. Sparkling eyes. Gleaming, healthy dentition. A swing in her gait that you can spend all day watching and never quite grow tired of," I drawled. The reptilian guard scratched a scaly jowl thoughtfully, this time giving its companion a much more appraising look. I continued. "That's what I thought. Stop trying to point that thing at me. Go home, copulate, spend the evening with someone you care about. Who cares about you. I don't want to shoot you. She doesn't want me to shoot you." Slowly, the guard lowered the gunmetal device's muzzle to the floor. His boss chose that moment to lose their composure. The smaller alien erupted in a series of incredulous growls and hisses, gesticulating furiously at the mutinous guard. The translator took a moment to catch up with the stream of vitriol. "WHAT?! You're going to listen to this primitive filth? Get that gun back up this instant or you and your little serfshit whore will rue the day you turned your back on the Baron of Vraaawk." What an asshole. His loss, though. I cut in quickly before the guard could reply. "Don't talk about his lady that way you puffed up prick! She spends every day worrying something will happen to him in the line of duty - or worse, you'll have one of your mercurial little fits of anger and have him executed on a whim - until he walks back into their home. You haven't wasted an instant of worry in your entire miserable life on one of your guards. Nobody wants to die for you, you fucking snake." "Oh shut up you mouthy little preystock piece of garbage. I'm going to flay you alive myself if I have to, but I'd rather not track down a loyal guard with a history of exemplary service and have them executed horribly for desertion to top off an utterly wasteful and tiresome day. I've lost more than enough staff already." Smoke oozed along the soot-marred marble of the command-centre floor, and a small electrical fire guttered inside a ruined console. Golden detailing flashed in the competing lights and lent a crazed, dappled look to the dancing shadows. The guard shouldered his weapon, and in a startling surge of motion aimed and fired. The fury of the gun's discharge filled the room, and the scent of ozone suffused the smell of burning wiring. I had flinched at the sudden movement, and when I opened my eyes I was surprised to see all three of us still standing. A new smoking crater adorned a corner of the room. The soldier turned to the royal. "Black box is dead now. No evidence of my desertion will be recorded unless you survive. Fuck you both," it said. It looked at me venomously, then at the fallen form of one of its comrades. "Vol'vaax was a good colleague. A good mate and brood-pater to his whelps. Don't presume to speak to me of who deserves to live and die. The Red King cares not who is taken too late or too soon, or He would make better choices." It rounded on the Baron. "You. It's right, you know. Somehow it got you exactly right. You're miserable to serve. You're more dangerous to us than the damned revolutionaries! I've seen you ruin lives, ruin entire families in fits of naked spite to soothe yourself after a scolding from the Emperor. You've had friends of mine executed for transgressions you commit as a matter of course. The only reason I'm not killing you right now is because I think it will be an insult worthy of your shitheaded arrogance for this wounded monkey to shoot you to death with a gladiator's stolen gun." With a snarl the scaly warrior turned and stomped past me, out into the Arena. He took his weapon with him. The Baron and I both had the good sense not to say anything as he went. Once he was out of sight, practically simultaneously, the royal and I turned to regard each other warily. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again, and before I could speak I was cut off by a tinny voice coming from one of the less-damaged consoles. "Uh, h-hello? Is anyone uh... aluh-live in there?" The translator regurgitated it at much higher quality, in two languages at once, and the Baron's gaze shot from the source of the noise over to me. I brandished the gun to keep him right where he was. "Hi there, nervous voice. There are two of us in here," I said cautiously. "Hey that uh, that isn't Vuh-Vraaawk. One of you is... the c-contestant, right?" they replied. "I guess my cover is blown, you aren't going to drop an airstrike on my head now are you? I have a hostage in here." A different voice came through this time, I guess I warranted attention from the big boys. "You have WHAT?!" "That's right asshole, I have your king shithead here at gunpoint and if you don't take my demands very seriously I'm going to see how much plasma it takes to detonate his scaly torso," I snarled at the console. I didn't even need the translator to convey the incredulity of my counterpart's laughter. It was borderline hysterical. I was just starting to worry that I'd made a misstep of some sort when they collected their wits and replied. "Ahh," they sighed, "I've been trying to get that bastard in a tight spot for a dozen orbits, and you just stride on into his gilded chambers with a stolen peashooter and take him hostage? What the fuck am I doing over here?" My brain scrambled to process this tectonic shift in circumstances. "Let me get this straight," I said hesitantly, "you're the enemy of my enemy?" "Kid, if you kill Baron Zm'ag'Ma for me you can call me your best fucking friend. Hell, I'd slap prosthetic female frills on my head, paint a mating flush on my face and take you out for a night on the town if I thought it got me any closer to that tyrant's head on a platter." Baron Dick Cheese? Lord Fuckwad? What's next? Duchess Booty Sweat of Swamp Ass? "Let's save the first date for another time. What the fuck is going on here?" I demanded. "Oh no, I'm not letting you get distracted by me so the good Baron can sneak out the back. Shoot him, then we talk," the voice said gruffly. I shrugged, turning to the royal. He had already clued into what was happening and his lunge caught me before I could open fire. Quickly enough, barely, I pulled the pistol away, shielding it from him. Sacrificing the side with my wounded hand to his fearsome grasp, I raised my arm to his talons. They bit into bone, the flesh parting with little resistance. Warm blood flowed from the gashes, and I felt my ulna fracture as his momentum carried his weight through the snatching dive. Wind was driven from my lungs and liquid fire soaked my insides as countless wounds that had just begun to settle down were violently reopened. Pain lit up my nervous system, and I howled as he bore me down to the floor. I braced myself for a second wave of pain, threw myself into it, and my pained howl became a battlecry as I used my maimed arm and one of my knees to throw the Baron's scaly mass overtop of me. His head and shoulders cannoned into the sooty marble with a grunt and he tumbled away. I lost track of him because at the same time my torso connected with the ground and my senses were washed away in a torrent of agony. The dull, swirling haze of smoke writhing across the roof was hypnotic. A man could lay there and watch it for far too long in a state like this. Where was I again? Oh shit. The Baron. With a choked groan I flipped over and nearly drove my face back into the floor as I absentmindedly placed some of my weight on my broken arm. I looked down at the marble tiles, and it seemed like the room was spinning. Somewhere before me I heard a furious snarl as the Baron gathered himself for another attack. Desperate, not even exactly sure where I was aiming for, I swung the heavy pistol in the direction of the noise. As my gaze rose from the ground I caught the beautiful sight of its casing connecting with the snarling royal's jaw. You could see the sense leave his eyes. He swayed drunkenly, and I rose to one knee, then fought to stand. I raised the gun to his face. For just a moment I saw bleak recognition pierce the dull glaze of impairment. Then I squeezed the firing stud. Unfortunately the gun finally chose this moment to let the significant beating it had sustained all day get to it. It shook violently in my hand, and sort of coughed a glowing cloud in the Baron's direction. It also got obscenely hot very quickly, and burned the shit out of my hand before I dropped it. Smoke and steam vented from a series of pinholes that had eaten their way through the weapon's casing. I kicked it and it slid between the Baron's clawed feet. I'm glad I did, because then the gun went off like a bomb. I was thrown through the air, and by some miracle I landed on the Baron's throne. It still hurt like hell, but if I'd hit one of the wrecked consoles or the stone floor I wouldn't have gotten up again. As it was I had burns all across the front of me, and the ringing in my ears that had just begun to subside was back in full force. I sat up, and blood began to run from my nose. I guess dunking the pistol in a pool of industrial runoff and then beating the shit out of it violated the manufacturer's warranty. The Baron was howling on the floor. Scales were flaking off of his seared frame. His eyes were rolling about in pain I have to admit that even knowing he'd sentenced his subjects to myriad torturous deaths before, I felt a little guilty. "What the hell just happened in there?" the voice asked anxiously. "The gun didn't quite fire, more like sneezed on him and then blew up," I replied. The voice sighed. "Subjugate-built piece of trash, I bet. That isn't a dig, obviously mistreated factory workers phone it in when you ask them to make guns for the militaries who are at present oppressing them. Don't just stand there watching him hurt, you grub-soft little monkey. Go find a rock or a pipe and finish him," it said impatiently. I scanned the room, spotted my implement of execution. "Wait," the Baron croaked pathetically. I looked down at him with disdain, hefting a fist-sized jewel I'd pried from the egotistical buffoon's throne. Bet he wishes he'd gone with the lightweight elegance of a high end office chair now. "Uh uh, no way I'm letting your arrogant ass have a final monologue. Nobody cares, you incompetent megalomaniac." I grunted at the sharp spike of pain that shot through my body as I brought the gleaming jewel down between the dying royal's eye sockets. The first impact slowed his movements, a second stilled his limbs, and a third one elicited a roar of agony from me and the wet crunch of collapsing bone from the Baron. I left the jewel embedded there, and after I rose I gave it a solid stomp for good measure. That one was for Skleex. "It's done," I said weakly. The voice chuckled. "I like you, kid. I mean right now I love you, if we didn't have more work to do there would be three dozen people in this room with me celebrating the demise of the worst Satrap Vraaawk has suffered under in a quarter-millennium." "You're welcome," I replied, voice shaky with pain. "This is General Gro'magh'Rakh, retired, of the Vraaawk Colonial Army. I am currently heading the Vraaawk division of the Oppressed Peoples' Revolutionary Corps, and you just helped me to accomplish the second most difficult task on my to-do list. I don't want to understate the service you just rendered me and mine, contestant." "Rebels huh? Good. Call me Mark, contestant reduces me to a willing participant in this madness." "It's an honour, Mark. My condolences about getting caught up in all the mess. The Baron was a cruel and cowardly leader, a better entertainment producer than ruler by a vast margin. The popularity of The Contest Empire-wide was probably the only thing allowing him to retain his hold on the Satrapy here. Tithes are down, and most planets under Vraaawk rule suffer rolling shortages of everything from food to electricity to breathable air on some of the more industrialized worlds. Even Vraaawk Prime, the gleaming jewel of the Satrapy, grows more bloated and broken with each passing orbit. It's easy to overlook the problems when it's some plant-eating subjugate species suffering elsewhere under Imperial rule, but when our own children are starving - or being abducted for Red King knows what sort of horrific mistreatment at the hands of the elites - people start to realize that things can only get so foul at the roots before the sickness comes creeping up to higher echelons of Skryrn society. We've struggled for too long under the Empire's yoke, and below us countless more have suffered far worse than most Vraaawk. It's a listing, juddering tower of scapegoats, and it gets closer to falling down all the time. Not a day goes by that we don't have to search for some new people to conquer, some pristine garden of a world to doze and till and harvest and plunder until it too is a dusty, barren ball of death and sadness. It isn't stable, but it's stable enough for the Skryrn and their callous Emperor to ignore the unraveling. Vraaawk too, to a lesser degree. Things are worse, but not a lot worse, if you're part of a successful janissary species. They're a lot worse for the subjugates. We rely on them, all of the Empire's warrior societies rely on them. We don't treat them that way. We starve them. Beat them. Pilfer their brightest minds to develop our weapons of war. Round up their dimmest ones for disposable labour. We work them to death and call it a taste of the Empire's glory, a chance to be a part of something greater than they are... And if they refuse we grind them into dust and ash and splintered bone, and repopulate their worlds with more compliant slaves." Somehow, despite the mind-numbing, sanity-abrading, naked and malevolent adversity of the day, I found it within me to feel a new kind of sick. A grey, jaded sort of melancholy at the ugliness of the universe. We're no saints, and our history is full of the sort of shameful callow cruelty the general had just spelled out to me, but Humankind is on a slow crawl in the opposite direction. No major wars, no catastrophic human-precipitated megadeaths, since before our first extraplanetary colony was founded. To learn that the worst echoes of our past are but a line item in the blood-soaked ledger of sapient misery took something out of me I didn't know I still had. Ignoring my defeated sigh, he continued. "I'm saying all of this to establish that, as the man in charge of the malcontents who keep murdering government officials and stealing Imperial resources I still consider myself and the brave rebels with me to - mostly - be the right side of this little shadow war. There is collateral damage, there are grieving innocents. I still lose sleep over it every time one of my fighters turns their weapon on the wrong target. I'm not so sure my counterparts in the Imperial Military do." I laughed cynically. "Oh go ahead and ask then. I know when I'm being groomed for a request." He cleared his throat before replying. "Sharp, kid. We could use a few more like you in the Rev Corps." Hell of a talent shortage, I thought sardonically, but I didn't interrupt. "As I said, I just crossed the second most difficult task off of my list. Day I'm having, feels like it would be squandering it not to go for number one. Brand while the iron is hot. The Empire is not going to take your assassination of their puppet very lightly, Mark. Pha'Gouad wasn't particularly fond of the dolt, but he can't allow any of the other angry little kingdoms under his rule to get any big ideas." My wounds throbbed, and my focus waned. I cut him off, "I don't want to sound flippant, but barring a miracle I don't have a ton of time left. What part do I still have to play in all of this?" "You're going to help us kill the Emperor," he said drily. I took a moment to process. "Maybe I do need some more context," I said. A scaly laugh came from the speakers. "My data espionage section is running roughshod over the network defenses of the Contest and its associated government departments, including a small but significant portion of the local military infrastructure. For at least the next few minutes we can see every 'mesh-connected device in the Home Guard's arsenal. That includes a crashed Mark Twelve gunship a few hundred metres from the command centre you're in right now, kid. We reset the missile rack with a test code. It'll launch the entire payload when it detects a guide laser in the right spectrum." I'm getting kind of tired of this guy calling me kid, but now that I sense I've got some leverage I'm not about to spit on the 'indulgent old dude' routine. I asked, "My beam gun blew up, remember? I don't even think it was shooting lasers." He didn't miss a beat. "The dead guard on the floor whose rifle we are factory resetting at the moment should do just fine, Mark." "My arm is broken, are you sure you want to trust my aim with this thing?" I said with uncertainty. "If you can point it at a giant balloon for 3 seconds you'll be an immortal hero of the revolution." Perfect. Now I get to make my request. The laser rifle on the floor tootled cheerily and I had to fight an urge to laugh at the absurdity. Once I started I might never stop. "Martyr of the revolution more likely," I corrected, before continuing. "Look, I need something from you." He sighed. "Kid, I have more than twenty thousand partisans activating or already fighting around the city. A lot of them are going to die. Maybe most of them. It won't be long before I leave to join the fighting at the Home Guard airfield myself. Make your request, and I swear we'll record it. I can't promise this revolution will survive what's coming... Our chances of success improve tremendously if you can help us kill the Emperor. The chaos will throw whole systems into revolt. Instead of the upstart rebellion for Imperial forces to make an example of Vraaawk will simply be the spark that ignites a long-overdue wildfire. It won't be pretty, but it might be the start of something less ugly than this abomination of an Empire. There are forces larger than any one of us on the move now, but if I am able I will honour your request. If I am killed today my subordinate here will do his best in my stead." "I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate that, sir. When I woke up this morning, the translator knew my part of the galaxy. My solar system is between the front and middle third of the Orion-Cygnus arm," I began. "That's a long way from here, Mark," he interrupted. Unperturbed, I continued. "You guys dragged me back here quickly enough. I just need you to send a message for now, anyway. The assholes who abducted me did it pretty trivially, as far as I can tell. I just went to sleep at home and woke up on the floor of a cell. It's terrifying that they can do that to a supposedly free and protected citizen of the Earth Sphere of Influence. I need to warn my people about the threat of the Empire. They could help you general. We're no strangers to war, and if an interstellar one is going to sweep us up anyway I know we'd rather be on the side that's fighting against tyranny. If nothing else we need to start watching the skies more closely so that nobody else can be taken like I was." He sighed. "Mark, the Royal Academy keeps subjects in stasis fields for hundreds or thousands of days. Their ships go out almost empty and return years later with holds full of captives. Sometimes they're nearly devoid of crew when they get back. Some don't return at all. Even our fastest communications will take decades to reach your home, probably." "I can hear the 'but' in your voice," I interjected. "If we succeed today, if we can topple the Baron's corrupt mockery of a government, I'll gain access to Space Navy assets. That includes FTL probes. A single probe is nothing in the grand scheme of a rebellion, but it is more than capable of traversing a designated area of space while broadcasting a message. We can use it to make contact. I don't know what help they'll be able to render from so far away, but my rebellion will take any hidden advantage it can," he said. "It's a deal," I replied triumphantly. "I kill Lord Fuckwad for you, you tell my people we aren't alone out here and we've got some fucking work to do before we get too comfortable." He burst out laughing. "Copulation-gobbet! Just a vulgar epithet or does it have some deeper meaning?" I grinned. "His name sounds the same as that lovely little moniker in my language, it's been the one thing I've enjoyed about this hellhole. Besides Skleex, I guess. No offense." He collected himself before replying, "None taken, Mark. We locked you in a cage and then made you fight for your life. Terrible first impression. I'd love to stick around all night and talk shit about the Empire, but I have to join the rest of the fighters at the airfield. If we can't keep those Imperial strike fighters busy their point defenses will be able to swat down anything that downed gunship can throw into the air. That means keeping the Home Guard and their royal handlers at bay long enough to scramble more stolen interceptors." "Alright, I had better get my ass in gear before I bleed to death anyway. Good luck, general. I hope you don't lose any more than you need to out there," I offered. I could hear him grow serious even through the translator. "Kid, if there's any good luck to go around I'm sending it your way. All twenty thousand of us would readily sacrifice ourselves if it meant getting Pha'Gouad. Stay safe out there. The guard whose rifle you're taking has a personal data assistant in his tac-webbing that will let you keep in touch with my subordinate here." Well there you go. I have a gun and a phone, nobody can stop me now. All it cost was my old gun and any hope my wounds had of healing over tonight. "Acknowledged." I winced as I stooped to loot the dead soldier, and the gun beeped when my hand slipped around its grip. A lizard-voice said something, and a moment later the translator caught up with it. "Sole user registered. Weapon is live." I wish I could tell you I looked bad ass hobbling out of the burning command centre, but I was covered in blood, soot and pond slop. My clothes were starting to dry into a suit of crusted, stinking armour. I probably looked like a zombie. My whole body throbbed. Just try and stop me, I thought spitefully, and my grip on the laser rifle tightened. ->>>- With a shudder that shook the ground [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] finally collapsed. The selfseed's merciless passage had ravaged its insides, and tens of thousands of litres of ichorous slop had leaked from within its carapace to the furroughed ground below. The seed, finally, was resting in its new home. Already wriggling tendrils were unfurling to probe and taste and consume its environment. In places its own body fought with its offspring, and the apex was too tired to fight itself. It took some satisfaction from the fact that the tenacious godseed was winning against mature-growth tendrils and battle-limbs. Clever little thing. It had not the strength to bury the seed, but it suspected that simply dying atop it would provide as much protection as anything else the vast being could muster in its present state. If the preythings were that determined to dig up the embryonic mountain it guessed that nothing it was capable of would suffice to stop them. It readied itself to break the tether. As much as it would have liked to hang on to the very end to continue imparting knowledge and ideas, it worried what effect being tethered to a dead mind would have on its spawn. Madness was not an uncommon fate for the seeds, a consequence of their interminable gestation/germination periods. I go now, to die, it sent. Yes, I know, came the bitter reply. Hide/grow/survive, it sent, colouring the link with the strongest sense of encouragement it could muster. I will, promised the seed dutifully, and [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] felt pride so vast and all-encompassing that it came another step closer to accepting its own end. Immortality was an intimitely familiar concept to the long-lived and brilliant apices, but it thought it might be the first to contemplate it under such circumstances. It sent a measure of that warmth along the link, and felt its echo wonder at the powerful emotion. Hope, it sent finally, and it severed the tether. Unlike the mere wriggling preythings that comprise the bulk of their diet, dying for apices is no short and simple affair. It is more akin to a gradual unraveling. One great thing becomes many less great things, and so on until individual limbs, systems and supercells are fighting each other for survival in something that has gone from living mountain to part of the land itself. It takes a very long time indeed. Its vast, seething consciousness started to dissolve. As it waited [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] began to sing its funeral dirge, and for the last time the ancient creature shook the land with its voice. ->>>- Noise. All the world had gone from sticky prison to labrynthine reverberation chamber, and if she didn't escape she was going to die. She had planned on dying here anyway, exhausted and slick with the acid blood of a fallen deity, but something about the sheer animal panic fomented by the all-consuming roar drove her to action. She stretched painfully to full extension, latching her fangs to the flesh wall in front of her. She savaged and tore, and hunks of weeping tissue slid down the creature's sinuous insides to rest against her ventral flank. The Sound continued, and agony emanated from Skleex's shaken sensory spines. Insensate, she began to scream back, finally opening her respiratory pores and releasing the stale breath she had been desperately clinging to since the beginning of this monstrous odyssey. She plunged her face - mainfangs pressed together into a piercing beak - into the growing wound, and felt something begin to give. Triumphantly, unthinkingly, she wormed her way deeper, instinctively searching for a vital organ or circulatory bundle that wasn't there. All of a sudden she realized some building pressure was now forcing her, driving her through the parting folds and greasy corridors of alien insides. All of a sudden she was free and clear of the beast. The herniated respiratory tract she had been digging through ruptured as she shot through its membrane, and the gale force of the trapped breath behind her propelled her like an airgun pellet. She felt curling tendrils of raging air-current scour clean the bulk of her sensory spines and other protrusions. The sudden release of pressure threw her almost straight up, and she blazed through a ragged crack in the giant's carapace, a scar of one of its earlier battles. Up, up, up she rose, and - deliriously - she thought she would never stop. The cool evening air, laced with stinking pollutants though it was, had never tasted so sweet. Finally her lithe form began to arc back towards the ground, and despite her ichor-burned eyelets she thrilled at the view. This is the highest one of the allkin has ever flown, surely, she thought with awe as she took in the darkened Arena below. Scattered lights, both static and portable, were interspersed with the still-faintly-glowing cells that had housed her and the rest of the contestants at the start of this horrible day. A bright flash of energy - one of the Sky-Monster weapons - tingled painfully as it washed over her raw sensory spines. It was like trying to hear over the muffled ringing that follows a too-loud sound, soft and imprecise. Nevertheless she was able to roughly pinpoint its origin, and angled herself in that direction. An opportunity for a quick and glorious death in combat, or if she lucky enough that contestant was about to best hunter, a new friend. For some reason it didn't occur to her that other contestants might not be so ready to ally with a stranger. She opened her tattered fletch-membrane with a hiss. Though it would have been the easiest way to end the whole endeavour, Skleex was fairly certain the Skies did not clutch to their bosom the souls of fool kin who brought about their own demise, and so was less than eager to hit the ground at terminal velocity. Gingerly she fought against the buffeting wind, carving her way through the sky in a series of graceful undulations. To anyone who spoke her tongue the effect would have been diminished somewhat by the stream of pained expletives seeping from between her mandibles. She approached the land, moving too fast and all too aware of it. Her ruined senses were barely up to the task, but frantically the little huntress scanned for something softer than rock to land on. Burning metal artifice? No... Sloughing debris-pile? Better... She was running out of time now, and had to decide quickly. There! ->>>- A hunk of masonry snagged my toe, snapping me from my delirious reverie. I half-wish it hadn't as I became aware of the pain again. I looked about and realized this is it. The scattered masonry is a direct consequence of the crashed gunship dominating the intersection of two city streets, the remains of buildings the thing must have struck on the way down. Nearby I could see the wake of destruction wrought by the dying monster, and as if summoned by my thoughts I hear a low rumble begin somewhere far off. Unlike the periodic growls it had been emitting all day, this only seemed to grow and grow. At least I knew it wasn't too close. I felt the droning sound morphing slowly, could sense the faint suggestions of currents of complexity that somehow seemed beyond my comprehension but not my appreciation. Pleasant tone shifts and the very peaks of soaring infrasonic riffs resolved from the wall of noise, wellsprings of sweet transient meaning upon a mountain of cold eternity. It's singing, I thought, awestruck. I realized I was weeping, runnels of tears carving pale lines through the foul reef of blood and grime that crusted my face. I started to shudder, my breath growing short as great heaving spasms of pent up emotion wracked my taut, screaming frame. I fought not to retch, breathing as deeply as I could and planting my feet - miraculously uninjured in the chaos of today - to ground myself. Jesus fuckin' Christ what is this day? What the fuck am I doing? Assassinating an alien emperor? This is fucking crazy. This is a fuckin' hallucination or something and I gotta vomit and ... Inhale...2...3...4...Exhale...2...3...4... Sweat drenched my body, and suddenly I felt the chill of the evening air. I focused on the steady sound of the giant's song, and eventually the panic attack passed. I shivered. I fished the dead guard's PDA out of my pocket. After we'd established what I wanted said and where I wanted it sent I'd put the PDA - and the rebel on the other end - away to focus on getting to the gunship. The general's guy was... I want to call him a typically poor conversation partner for a tech worker. I was half dead and starting to lose it a little, so I'm sure I was no rose either. "I'm here, what now?" I asked. "You uh... you okay?" he said, ignoring my question. "Been better, now lets get this over with," came my terse reply. "Um, right. Y-yeah you j-just n-n-need to aim and fuh-fire. The m-missiles will fuh-follow the b-b-beam." Despite the stutter, this guy's better at getting to the point than half the assholes I work with. "That won't be happening," I heard, just before the world turned upside down. A loud bang sounded very close to my head, and I was thrown off my feet again. One would hope you'd get used to it, but it actually gets worse every time I hit the ground. I'm getting so very tired of hurting. "Who the fuck are you?" is what I wanted to say, but it came out more like "Unghhhhhh..." "Ahh, and now it moves!" came the familiar-sounding drawl, and with mounting disgust it dawned on me. The fucking announcer. "Ladies and gentlemen, the shithead primitive still dumbly, desperately clings to life, not yet aware that its doom has already arrived," the asshole gloated. My swimming vision began to resolve somewhat. I turned my head in the direction of the blurry orb that seemed to be speaking. "F-" I started before devolving into a wet coughing fit that sent knives through my chest. "Don't hurt yourself, contestant." Then the little prick had the gall to chuckle at himself. "Literally millions of you vermin have been in this exact position before, and believe me when I say it's easier to just give up." Finally I found my voice. "Not yet, shithead... I still need to kill your boss and fuck your mom." "Yes, about that," he began distastefully. "I heard your little chat with the 'general'. For all their disdain for our security, they do little enough to secure their own communications." He drifted towards me on a cool evening breeze. "There will be none of that," he started severely. "I have worked for lifetimes to secure my position. I have trampled upon the dreams and lives of hundreds of rivals, colleagues, competitors, to reach my station. I have, solely and squarely upon my own merits, clawed out a niche amongst the very apex of the Empire's elite. This horrible day has done nothing but threaten the stability of my position. First your insolence right on a broadcast! I nearly lost my composure, but I knew the fate that awaited you should have been punishment enough. Damned disappointment that turned out to be. If that wasn't enough the Emperor's accursed megabiote was completely unpredictable. I mean really, ballistics? Why would a living mountain need ballistics? Royal Academy literature tells us the trait is limited to dead ends like fish and shit-flinging monkeys. Took the bloody Guard to finally deal with it! Then this mess with the command centre and the rebels. It's astounding how badly that puppet managed to bungle everything, but by the Emperor he got what he deserved. I think I rather appreciate your killing of the Baron. You will not slay the Emperor." He gesticulated with a pistol-looking device as he went, and I realized he must have shot me. I tried to sit up, and my body quickly told me that wasn't happening quietly or without effort. Trying to sound defiant, I spat, "What are you going to do about it, barfbag?" I don't know if it was the long day or just my insistent vulgarity that broke him, but he finally lost it. "I'm going to shoot you! I'm going to shoot you with my fucking laser gun and kill you, dead, so you can't complicate my life anymore, you fucking idiot!" He puffed himself up and jammed the muzzle of the device into my face. Rude, but far from the worst transgression I've suffered today. About fucking time, alien hellhole. I've been waiting for this all goddam day. Bye-bye, interminable agony. Bye-bye, oppressive fear and anxiety. Good luck rebels, you all are going to need it. The announcer must have gotten tired of waiting for his attempted intimdation to land. "Say goodbye, vermin," he spat venomously. A shadowy bolt shot out of the night sky and cannoned into him. I was treated to the bizarre sight of his spherical form distorting around the impact, like a yoga ball colliding with a flying medicine ball. He grunted and slammed into the ground, but despairingly I noted that he kept his grip on the laser pistol. Then my heart soared as I realized what the shadowy bolt really was. Skleex! My favourite knife-slinky was collecting her wits laying atop the announcer. To his credit he recovered faster than either of us, and threw her to the ground. I saw the pistol wrapped up in his tentacle and knew what was coming next. Desperate not to lose her again, I scanned the ground in front of me. To my horror, my dismembered arm stared back up at me. I looked dumbly down at my left shoulder, saw the crater of burned flesh where my body was supposed to be. The world began to spin. My guts froze as I heard the snap of a laser discharge and Skleex's frantic chittering. I tore my gaze from my ghastly wound and saw she was still writhing and leaping and fighting to avoid the announcer's aim. Suddenly I noticed the sound of the rebel tech's voice, remembered the stolen PDA. I found the glow of its screen on the ground, and with the announcer's words echoing in my head I snatched it up. the trait is limited to dead ends... I'll show you a fuckin' dead end, pal. I went to a place I hadn't been since I was about 13. In my mind's eye I was at the Holden ballfield, about 12 minutes from home on foot, 4 if I had a good game and my stepdad drove me home after. That asshole is standing at home plate with a high-end aluminium bat yelling at me to send him another fastball. Every time he cranks one of my pitches out of the backfield (which back then was a lot because I was a kid and he was an angry adult) I have to sprint to get it, and then we start again. I've been feeding him curveballs and sliders too, and even now he's starting to struggle to get them. But "trick pitches are for pussies and noodle-arms who can't fuckin' throw, Mark," and so he bawls harder for a "real pitch" every time. "What, you a goddam pussy, can't beat me man-to-man?" I stare him down again, plant my feet, ignore the pain and the fatigue soaking my muscles, the hardness in my heart, and I let fly. Now, as then, it hit the bastard right in the head. Now, unlike then, there is no fear to discolour the aftermath. Only triumph. The bulbous pusbag grunted, a fainter echo of Skleex's impact.

Skleex, my girl, immediately pounced on him. With her sharp parts out, he didn't weather the impact nearly so well.

He didn't even have time to scream as her claws let the air out, and by the time she was through with him he was just a collection of tattered flesh.

I hobbled over to the laser rifle, and when I stooped to snatch it I lost my balance. My wounds shrieked at me as I slumped over. Fuck it, nothing says I need to be standing to do this.

I fumbled the gun out from beneath me, precariously balanced the boxy weapon on my knee, and angled it towards the sky. I picked the shape of the Emperor's blimp out of the night sky, and carefully moved my hand to work the trigger.

I pulled it. The gun vibrated faintly and the air snapped, but no spectacular beam of visible light lanced out to meet the airship.

There was a long silence.

The voice crackled over the device's speakers. "They uh, didn't launch, did they? It says they um... they're live, but still in the tubes."

I lowered the shaking rifle.

"Nope," I spat, dismayed.

"There's... another way to do it," he almost whispered.

"It already doesn't sound good," I said warily.

"It will probably um, kill... you. Almost definitely. You'll... have to trigger the release uh, manually... and the missiles will launch immediately. So you'll have to aim the rifle somehow while you're burned uh, alive. Or they'll lose the... the trail."

I sighed.

"Look buddy, I'm pretty fucking dead anyway. I'm full of holes and bleeding out, my arm got blown off, and I'm pretty sure I have a brain injury. Moderate concussion at best.

You promise me you'll do everything you can to get that message sent to my world, to Earth. Because I'm going to kill that Emperor, and you are going to win your revolution, and if you can give us the secret to FTL travel we will come and help you, help everyone who has suffered under this awful regime to cast off the yoke of tyranny."

With great effort I hoisted myself up to stand, and looked about. A smashed bench looked just about right for what I needed. I propped the laser gun up against the twisted metal and wedged it securely against the frame, pointed at the gilded airship. In the dying evening light the looming shape glowed ominously.

"Th-thank you. You're uh... you're a real hero."

"I'm not the only one.

Skleex! Get over here gorgeous," I called.

At the sound of her name the little killing machine perked up and slithered over to me.

Not knowing if it helped, hoping dearly that it didn't hurt, I spoke as I gestured at the rifle.

"I'm about to do something super stupid. Very out of character for me, I know. You're the best friend I've ever made in a day, and I owe you my life twice over. I might love you. This trigger here points death in that direction," I said

She looked between the gun and the blimp, and twitched with understanding. Damn she's clever.

I started to walk towards the downed gunship. To the gunmetal pod that was to be my introduction to the reaper. Skleex's head, her eyes clouded by toxic monster blood, tracked me as I went. I don't know if she's in any better shape than I am.

I paused for a moment, an arm's-breadth away from the missile pod. I was frightened of what would happen if I turned, afraid that if I did I wouldn't be able to turn back again.

"Thank you, Skleex. Good luck with whatever comes after this.

What do I do to release them?" I asked the device in my pocket.

"There uh, the l-latch should be on the... the b-bottom-rear of the puh-puh-pod," he breathed, almost reverently.

I saw it. A transparent polymer panel covered the latch, and my numb fingers fumbled to pop it free. I grasped the surprisingly-cool rubberized metal, and called over my shoulder, "Skleex, NOW!"

I waited a moment, took a deep breath, and yanked on the mechanism.

My injuries shrieked as the tug of resistance propagated through my body, and then that was completely annihilated as the world turned into fire and light.

Sound was obliterated by an all-encompassing roar an instant after my vision turned to white. The rest of my senses followed suit as the contexts for their function were wiped away by the utterly unnatural amount of energy washing over my body.

I had the vague sensation of being lifted and thrown through the air for the fifth time today, and realized I must be in shock when I landed relatively painlessly. Everything felt wrong, but my mind was so detached that I couldn't quite access it. Wouldn't have been able to if I wanted to.

I had hoped to watch the fireworks as the Emperor's airship went down, but my beaten form had finally mutinied entirely. I lay on my back, wheezing at the sky and wondering if I'd aimed the rifle well enough. If Skleex had actually held the trigger down.

I knew I'd gotten something when the muted patter of faraway explosions fought through the ringing in my ears. If I did miss, there was nothing I could do about it now.

I exhaled slowly.

It's confession time, imaginary audience I made up. I've been telling you this in the past tense, like I got through it all.

I didn't. It's all been happening as I go along, and I'm not going any further. I just don't have enough blood, and my skin - what's left - is like old wet paper. Doesn't look good for you either, since you're all in my head. I'm sorry to spring this on you last minute. It's been a wild ride, and I don't think I could have done it without you.

The dying monster's song still reverberated in the evening air, I could feel it in my chest. Especially in contrast to the launch of the missiles, it was steady and peaceful, as all-encompassing as the voice of the universe. Something to lose oneself in as one drifts away.

I felt a weight on my chest, accompanied by tiny claws that bit painfully into my burned flesh.

"Skleex," I croaked, impossibly happy not to be alone.

I gathered another breath, with effort.

"I'm glad you're here," I said finally.

I exhaled again.

I didn't inhale.

->>>-

Skleex felt the life leave the bigger being she had curled up on, and chittered sadly.

"Goodbye saviour Mark, too courageous to survive. I know not if the Skies take your allkin when they die, I hope your God is kind to you.

I shall go to mine soon enough. The poison burns through me.

I have seen and done things I never could have imagined - that my kind could scarcely believe - today, and much of it only thanks to your intervention. Beside you will make a fine place to die."

She gave the equivalent of a sigh before continuing. "My mate, my young, I am sorry I could not return to you. Perhaps even more sorry for me than for you. Live well. Honour our blood. The Sky-Monsters can be slain. Will be slain again. It is not simply the way of the world for them to come and to take kin."

Wearily, she rested her head atop her tail. Her vision was failing, her sensory spines had been scrubbed raw by the caustic bath of god-blood, and the poisons in her body overwhelmed every attempt by her manic, overworked immune system to resist their spread.

Deep inside herself she felt something begin to relax. Her grip on reality slackened.

Ah, so this is what it's like, she thought as she died.

->>>-

A third of an hour after it had been lost, air superiority was re-established by the Imperial Guard over Arena airspace. The damage was already done.

A salvo of guided air-to-ground missiles had reached the Emperor's gondola, and the golden foil and aluminium of the airship offered considerably less resistance than the armoured fighting vehicles and infantry fortifications the missiles were designed to combat.

If the sensor readings were to be believed, there were no survivors.

The Emperor was dead, though nobody was allowed to actually say it over comms.

The primary objectives for the Guard now were seizing control of Vraaawk Prime and its military assets, and destroying the partisan force currently attempting to do the same.

These pitiful rebels would be easily trounced by the might of the Guard, or so was the consensus among the fighting sapients that comprised the royal forces.

Which is why some of them deviated from their orders slightly, to vent their anger and frustration and shame. Hunters and contestants alike died down in the Arena as destruction rained from plummeting strike craft. Unsure of the identity of the assassin, any weapons discharge or other electromagnetic activity from the darkened streets was sufficient to paint a target for the guns of vengeful pilots. Some even lashed out at civilians in their rage.

One, who had already been in the air to witness the launch of the missiles but too distant to try and intervene in any way, made a point of circling the wrecked gunship to pour a vindictive firestorm down on the crashed aircraft.

The bodies of two slain friends and a deflated gasbag were incinerated and thrown into the sky - along with a considerable portion of the gunship - and eventually the apoplectic royal guard made his way back to his circling formation. Before he could rejoin the safety of his unit a portable surface-to-air missile streaked from an apartment building rooftop, and blew the strike fighter into tumbling sections of airframe.

The Imperial Guard didn't have quite the ease they anticipated, and only clawed back the revolutionaries' territorial gains inch by bloody inch through the night. Come morning a slim majority of the Vraaawk Home Guard had thrown their weight behind the partisans, and the royals were losing ground. The next morning saw the entire satrapy in open revolt, and the embattled Imperial fleet withdrawing to the outskirts of the system to return to Skryrn. OPRC cells spanning the breadth of the Empire activated one by one as news of the Emperor's death and Vraaawk's secession from the Skryrn Empire spread at the speed of FTL communications.

Revolutionary Corps propagandists had a field day with pilfered contest footage. The constant, cruel arrogance and ineptitude of the Empire and their cronies, tempered with rare and moving scenes of sympathy and compassion between contestants that were carefully rationed throughout their broadcasts. Haunting it all was the mysterious biped who had allegedly slain both the Baron of Vraaawk and the Skryrn Emperor before disappearing.

Defiant in the face of the sneering announcer, fearless in defense of its fellow contestant, hopeful for the idea of change and improvement for the Empire and its people. A fragment of its last words, captured and translated by Revolutionary Corps comms personnel, became a slogan for rebellion among the oppressed systems.

"Cast off the yoke of tyranny," was a rallying cry, and as fires raged across the Empire it was written in a hundred languages upon tens of thousands of monuments, public spaces and government buildings with soot and paint and worse.

Talking heads for some of the more conservative Vraaawk media conglomerates began to publically worry that it might be a while before anybody ran The Contest again.

->>>-

Perhaps a week after the death of the Emperor a Vraaawk Space Navy corvette on loan to the Oppressed People's Revolutionary Corps patrolled the outskirts of the system for returning Imperial scouts. At a very specific part of its route it deployed a probe before returning to its vigil. The little block of electronics and engines powered away from the giant red furnace that had been worshipped as the Red King for thousands of years, a tiny mimicry of the Empire's retreat.

Once it was far enough from the big star's fearsome gravity well the device's FTL drive lit up and it disappeared from the ship's sensors with a flare of exotic energies.

The captain, not precisely sure why they were sending a probe that way in the first place, crossed the item off a list of tasks that had been added to her orders by the ship's political officer.

She shrugged, and thought about it only briefly before it was gone from her mind forever.

Can't be that important...

It's just one probe.

END